At the end of June this year, Latvia’s general government debt amounted to €10,600 per capita, according to information published by the Fiscal Discipline Council (FDP).
When recalculating general government debt per capita, the highest debt level in Europe was recorded in Belgium – €56,400 per resident – while Bulgaria and Estonia had the lowest levels, at €4,400 and €6,900 per resident respectively, the FDP reports.
Latvia remains among the countries with a relatively low level of general government debt — 48% of GDP — thus meeting the Maastricht criterion of keeping debt below 60% of GDP, the Council notes.
The debt level for 2025 is forecast at 49% of GDP, followed by a more rapid increase in the coming years — in 2026, debt could reach 51% of GDP, while in 2027 and 2028 it is expected to rise to 55% of GDP.
The FDP also points out that the share of debt servicing costs relative to GDP will continue to grow.
Interest payments are planned at €519 million, or 1.2% of GDP, in 2025; €617 million, or 1.4% of GDP, in 2026. Between 2027 and 2028, interest expenditures from the general government budget will amount to 1.5% of GDP, while continuing to increase in nominal terms — reaching €700 million in 2027 and €736 million in 2028.
Among European countries, the highest debt-to-GDP ratio was recorded in Greece (151.2%), and the lowest in Estonia (23.2%).
The FDP explains that in seven of the fifteen countries with debt levels below 60% of GDP — so-called low-debt countries — the debt-to-GDP ratio decreased in percentage points compared with the second quarter of 2024. The largest reductions were seen in Ireland (down by 7.2 percentage points) and Denmark (down by 3.4 percentage points). On average, these seven countries saw a 2.1 percentage point decrease in the second quarter.
Meanwhile, in the remaining eight low-debt countries, debt increased — on average by 3.1 percentage points.
Among the high-debt countries (13 in total), the debt-to-GDP ratio decreased in five — on average by 3.9 percentage points. The largest reductions were in Greece (down by 8.9 percentage points) and Cyprus (down by 6.5 percentage points). However, in eight high-debt countries, debt increased on average by 2.4 percentage points, including Finland (up by 7.8 percentage points), France (up by 3.5 percentage points), Slovakia (up by 2.7 percentage points), and Italy (up by 2.3 percentage points).
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